


Laughing

by a_nonny_moose



Series: Who Killed Markiplier Relevant [4]
Category: Markiplier Egos
Genre: Implied Sexual Assault, Self Harm, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-24
Updated: 2018-01-24
Packaged: 2019-03-09 00:42:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13470066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_nonny_moose/pseuds/a_nonny_moose
Summary: You really, really shouldn’t think about it.





	Laughing

**Author's Note:**

> I’m not too proud of this, but it was well-received, so I may as well post it here. Trigger Warnings apply. 
> 
> In other news, school has started and I’m not going to be posting as regularly; some longer stuff is in the works, and I’ll post snippets like this. See you on the other side, folks.

You know what you _really_ shouldn’t think about?

Don’t think about what happened before Who Killed Markiplier, before Darkiplier was ever created. 

Don’t think about the three best friends since childhood facing the world together. 

Damien, newly in public office and climbing the ladder fast.

William, fresh from war and dodging scandal, feet firmly on the ground. 

Mark, pinching pennies and sticking to the shadows of his own home in an attempt to learn its secrets.

Don’t think about how Mark and Celine must have met. A dance, a drink, a heart-stopping glance between flashes of light. Mark, ever the gentleman, bending low over her hand. Celine, seeing first the millionaire and second the man, smiling sweetly with eyes swept low. 

Damien and William taking shots a bar away, feeling, even then, the loss of a brother. 

Mark folding himself into Celine, devoting himself, forgetting even the mysteries of the House in his love. Money is piled at her feet, gleaming eyes hidden under trembling lashes. Mark is powerless, and falls head over heels. The others reach out, never able to touch Mark quite the same way. Never seeing the way that Celine seems to move with the darkness, the moon to its tide. 

He still throws parties, of course, still extends the hand of favor to his closest friends. It’s formal, the light behind his eyes deadened, distracted by the pale of the night sky. Celine waltzes along a tightrope, pulling him behind her, and the others get snatches of conversation before he’s swept away again. 

Mark goes quiet. 

Don’t imagine William and Celine meeting properly at one of these parties.

They’ve heard so much about each other, too much to put a face to the name, at first. The dreary, war-torn Colonel; the fur-cloaked, charming Mrs. Iplier. They catch each other’s eye as Mark talks to some old friend, never noticing Celine’s grip grow loose on his arm. 

“Colonel.”

“Celine.” And even now, it sounds like music on the Colonel’s tongue as he bows, hat nearly brushing the floor, mustache tickling against her outstretched, slender hand. “The pleasure is all mine.” 

It starts with glances, William nursing the warmth that blossoms in his chest. Celine has decided, already, that she’s seen something she wants. She’s seen the Colonel’s heart, worn on his sleeve, in the way he lowers his glasses and bows at the waist. Ripe for the picking, if nothing else, and Mark is so _devoted…_

Don’t imagine the first time Celine and William meet without Mark’s shadow over them, in front of the house where moonlight gleams though the leaves. William breathes, hat held in shaking fingers over his heart. He has to end this, before Mark—before Damien—before Celine—

Celine meets him in a petticoat that whispers around her shoulders, eyes brighter than the stars, and William decides that it can all wait for one more night.

One more night. 

Don’t think about the first time that William and Celine kiss, her lips cool against his, mustache ruffling against her face. She breaks it first, leaving the Colonel open-mouthed, red-faced, about to protest. 

And he sees her face, framed by moonlight. 

And he sees the house looming in the background, a memory of what he could have had. 

And he doesn’t see the shadows grow darker as she looks him over, almost hungry.

And he kisses her again. 

They meet again, and again, like teenagers sneaking out past their bedtime. The same time, the same place.

Until Celine doesn’t show, and William is left pacing the gardens, boots stomping, huffing into his mustache. 

Until Celine comes running barefoot from the house, dress torn around her ankles, chest tight with panic. 

“He knows,” she whispers into William’s chest. For once, the tears she cries are real. Her carefully laid plan—money, power, love—is all crumbling around her. “He knows.”

William has never been the most reasonable of men.

Don’t imagine William storming into the mansion with gun drawn, face to face with the man he grew up with. The shadows pull him back, unload his gun, unsteady his hand, and the Colonel fires blanks into the nearest wall. Markiplier orders both of them out, the blood of his wife and his best friend on his hands. 

Don’t imagine what happens next. 

Celine and William falling apart as the house grows farther and farther away, growing distant with every passing dawn. The public doesn’t know, and Celine is caught in a marriage she never wanted. William brings home money tainted by Mark’s hands, and she supposes, for now, that’s good enough. She grows weaker, the waning of the moon once full. 

And William brings home the news that he’s off to Africa, and Celine only stares, blankly, and wishes him well. 

Damien, hearing of his friends, trying to get them to let him in. Wilford is quiet, Mark slams doors in his face, and Damien is left alone with the power he’s spent his entire life trying to accumulate—and nothing else. 

Most of all, don’t imagine what happens to Mark once he shuts the rest of them out. 

The first time, its poison, and carefully planned. He’s left a note on his dresser, a letter in the mail to his lawyer. Mark lays down and waits, waits as the world begins to spin and sicken and finally, _finally_ , fades to black.

And he wakes up again with the phone ringing, his lawyer praying that it didn’t work.

He chalks it up to circumstance. He’ll try harder.

He beats himself against the walls of the house: fists through wood panels, his head against the stairs. It doesn’t work, it doesn’t work, _why won’t it work_?

The fifth time that Mark wakes up at the end of a rope, he’s started to figure it out. He cuts himself down, noting with satisfaction the way that his wounds have already healed over, dried blood sticking his sleeves to his skin. He’s living, even if he doesn’t want to, and there’s a tiny voice in his head pushing him onwards. 

_What they did to you is unfair._

_They don’t deserve to be happy._

_Maybe you should **make** them unhappy._

Mark at the bottom of the lake, staring up at the sky through the water, even as it fills his lungs. _Maybe I should make them unhappy._

Don’t imagine that this is how it ends, Mark waking up with his brains splattered over the wall and a new shadow hanging over him, pushing him forward. A revolver, one bullet in the chamber, whispering a plan into motion.

Don’t imagine that this is how eternity finds the three brothers.

Damien accepts the invitation to one last party, hoping to see his friends again. The public has treated him well and left him empty, and his hands curl around his cane with increasing nervousness. Age has been more kind to him than the others, but touched him all the same.

William, back from Africa and avoiding his mistress’ eye, crumples the fancy cardstock into his pocket and informs Celine that he’ll be away for a weekend. She stares. All she does now is stare.

They meet where it all began, and Mark, for thirty-seven stab wounds, looks as alive as the day they’d met him. Damien looks to William, then to Mark, but both of them smile with forced cheer and pass the other by.

Don’t think about how their last meeting must go, Mark laughing, pulling William by the hand into the cellar, where they’d spent so many years playing pretend. 

“One last game,” Mark insists, smile as harsh and bright as the sun in this shadowy basement. “Just the two of us.”

And the Colonel feels something familiar, something that reminds him of the movement of the waves at sea. The shadows are closing in, and he laughs and puts the gun to his own temple. He’s too drunk to see Mark laughing, laughing, laughing. 

A click, and nothing.

A click, and blood and brains covering the walls, a bottle smashed on the floor, and no one is laughing. 

The joke is over, but no one is laughing. 

And William doesn’t remember, and William doesn’t care, because the next thing he knows, Celine, beautiful Celine is there, and her eyes are just as bright as the stars, and confessing can wait for just one more night.

Damien tugs at his coat sleeves, and William stops to breathe, stops to see that the shadows have fallen into place and the three of them are right where they should be. And everything is perfect, if only for a moment. 

Don’t imagine William returning to his room, sitting, shaking, fingers curing around the edge of the bed that he and Celine first made love in. Don’t imagine the Colonel fooling himself into thinking that everything was okay, because the two people that he loved most in the world were safe, and together, and _alive_.

And when the first crack of lighting hits, William is running, chest tight with panic. Something familiar. _He knows, he knows._

The Detective tells him that Celine is gone, and Damien too, and William is looking for clues with his revolver held close, two bullets in the chamber. 

The Detective is telling everyone who can hear not to trust _Celine, his Celine_ , and William cocks the gun. 

He doesn’t see, as he never has, the shadows sharpening in the corners of his vison. Hungry, familiar. 

There are two clicks, two shots, and the guilty party is lying against the wall in a pool of blood. William looks down, rust on his hands again, and an innocent protégé is two stories down with blood leaking from their skull. 

Don’t imagine what William thinks as he finds the room that he knows his lover, his best friend, died in, finds the cane still warm from Damien’s twisting hands. Age has been cruel to William, and he can barely breathe in the silent house. It used to be his. It was all _almost_ his.

And he sits, sits until the pool of blood stains his shoes, until his coat is too heavy and he throws it off his shoulders. 

Don’t imagine that he sits there until the sun rises again, the moon gone for good, and the broken shell, the innocent, _just gets back up._

Don’t imagine that this is the end: this is where Markiplier fades into the shadows, another puppet; where Damien is stitched into a shattered mask, unrecognizable; where William dies, at last, and Wilford laughs for the first time. 

And there is no joke, and _someone is still laughing._


End file.
